Manipulative Gold ‘Fat Finger’ Or Algo Trade Worth $1.24 BillionThe
gold market was briefly shaken by an unusually large early morning sell
order, which triggered a brief trading halt in gold futures and left
traders questioning whether the transaction was a mistake and the
motivation of the seller.

Gold 3 Day Chart – (Bloomberg)

Gold fell $14 in one minute despite no breaking financial and
economic news and despite no movement in the dollar, oil, equity or bond
markets.

There was only the insignificant personal income and spending numbers
– which came in slightly better than expected and could not justify
such quick falls.

CME Group Inc's Comex division recorded an unusually large
transaction of 7,500 gold futures during just one minute of trading. The
sale took out blocks of bids as large as 84 contracts in one fell swoop
and cut prices down $15 to $1,648.80 a troy ounce.

"The market was given a short period to recalibrate and ... it was
for 10 seconds," a CME spokesman said. "It only happened in gold
futures, in the June gold contract."

Gold traders buzzed with speculation that the transaction was an
input error - a so-called "fat finger" trade."Or a Gold Finger as it
might be known in the bullion market," traders at Citi joked in a note to clients.

The massive size of the transaction - 750,000 troy ounces worth more
than $1.24 billion – led to speculation that it was either a mistake by a
trader or that an entity wished to manipulate the market lower.